The Archaeological Museum of Alicante has reaffirmed its commitment to collaborate in the conservation and promotion of the sanctuary of Pla de Petracos on the 40th anniversary of its discovery. The vice-president and deputy for Culture, Julia Parra, said that "on this important date, we want to express our recognition and endorse our support for the most important rock art site in our province, which is also a clear example of local development and an important enclave for inland tourism".
The deputy pointed out that Pla de Petracos "is also an example of institutional collaboration". The Provincial Council and the Castell de Castells Town Council are jointly involved in the work customer service, maintenance of installations and technical adviceunder the supervision of the curator of Prehistory at MARQ. Jorge Soler. In addition, the MARQ Foundation contributes to the dissemination of the site and the Interpretation Centre publishes the guides in different languages, as well as managing the visits in coordination with the Consistory.
Julia Parra acknowledged "the work done to raise awareness of the importance of the site, where since the nineties the Diputación de Alicante has been working on the enhancement and conservation of the site and has been developing a whole line of projects under the guidance of Jorge Soler and the head of the Architecture Department, Rafael Pérez Jimenez".
Since 1998, the following have been carried out improvements to facilitate public access by first installing a fence with information and a Macro-schematic Art Interpretation Centrewhich opened in 2003. The facilities were renovated in 2015 to provide them with new audiovisual resources and to expand the exhibition with a display case that includes replicas of utensils of the first farmers and livestock breeders obtained through experimental archaeology. The MARQ transferred numerous samples from Pla de Petracos to its museum on the occasion of the exhibition. 'Rupestre. The First Sanctuaries'. in 2018, thus recognising its importance in the framework of the 20th anniversary of the declaration of the Prehistoric Art of the Spanish Mediterranean Arc as a World Heritage Site.
With an outstanding ethnographic collection, the Interpretation Centre welcomed 1,312 visits in 2019It is a tourist attraction for the area. "Now, forty years after the discovery of the pediment of Pla de Petracos, it is a known and respected reality, considered, moreover, as one of the most important expressions of the Neolithic in the Iberian Peninsula," said the deputy of Culture.
The site is one of the most important expressions of the Neolithic in the Iberian Peninsula. which shows the arrival of agriculture and livestock farming in the province in the middle of the 6th millennium BC. Petracos was a place of worship and a meeting place, where the figure of Abrigo V stands out.
In July 1980 Pere Ferrer and Enrique Catalá, from Centre d'Estudis ContestansThe cave paintings of Pla de Petracos were discovered. They were studied by the lecturer of the University of Alicante Mauro Hernández and were presented to the scientific community at the Congress on Schematic Art in Salamanca in 1982. Their discovery contributed to the beginning of research into Macro Schematic Art in the Iberian Peninsula.
